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Thursday, March 31, 2016

When New England was New

By: Julia Blakely Special Collections Cataloger Smithsonian Libraries

Map of eastern North America. Detail of engraved map by Nicolaes Jansz Visscher, made about 1655, not long after Josselyn's first journey to the New World. Note the prominent, plump turkey. Gift of Mrs. Francis P. Garvan, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

It is a small book, palm-size, with pages of less-than-fine
paper, the well-worn letters of the type sometimes carelessly inked. The sparse
woodcut illustrations are child-like in their simplicity and
straight-forwardness. Yet John Josselyn’s New-Englands rarities discovered, printed in London in 1672, drew me in as I went about
cataloging the work. Intrigued by the title and the early date of publication,
I found myself reading an account of the landscape of my past, from Boston, “down
east” (that is, up the coast as represented in the above illustration) to my place of birth, and points all around. That
great bibliography, The Hunt Botanical
Catalogue,notes that this book is
“particularly interesting to people who are fond of Maine.” Indeed. The text
provides a sense of place from the 17th century.

Having refreshed my self here [Boston]
for some time, and opportunely lighting upon a passage in a Bark belonging to a
Friend of my Brothers, and bound to the Eastward, I put to sea again, and on
the Fifteenth of August I arrived at Black-point, otherwise called Scarborow, the habitation of my beloved
Brother, being about an hundred leagues to the Eastward of Boston; here I resided eight years, and made it my business to
discover all along the Natural, Physical, and Chyrurgical Rarities of the
New-found World.

BHL digitized copy, supplied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

New-Englands raritiesis
an account of the author’s two journeys to America, the first in 1638 for
several months and again in 1663 for a stay of eight years. Despite the
autobiographical nature of the work, not much is known of Josselyn, “active” in
cataloging parlance, from 1630 to 1675, and born around 1608 in Essex County.
The author comes across as a learned, if not terribly discerning, gentleman
with possibly a medical background. He describes the topography, customs and the
natural history of the country, with great interest in the healing properties
of organic materials from recipes used by both native Americans and colonists, leading
to speculation that the Englishman was a physician. It may be Josselyn was
simply well-read and the curious type. The era of European plant exploration in
the New World, for both therapeutic, consumption and ornamental purposes, was underway
by the time of Josselyn’s travels. There would be a ready audience for such
information, particularly in a relatively accessible and inexpensive publication.

“Scarborow” is the coastal area of Scarborough, incorporated
as a town in 1658 in the present state of Maine. One of the area settlements
was “Black-point” (originally a patent of 1500 acres) that included the rocky shoreline
of present-day Prouts Neck, of artist Winslow Homer-fame (a place now known for
exclusiveness). It was here that John Josselyn’s brother Henry lived and worked
along the sea, rivers, stretches of salt marshes and sandy beaches. Henry
Josselyn was representing the Royal grant of land, Council of Gorges' Province of Maine, by 1636, and later served as Deputy-Governor.

There is some evidence that Henry Josselyn may have ascended
the highest mountain in the Northeast, the 6,288-foot (1,917-meter) Mount
Washington. His brother John, as did Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524, observed
and recorded the peak (known by various names
before European settlement) from shipboard in the Atlantic Ocean as “one stately mountain … surmounting the rest”:

Fourscore miles (upon a direct line) to
the Northwest of Scarborow, a Ridge
of Mountains run Northwest and Northeast an hundred Leagues, known by the name
of the White Mountains, upon which
lieth Snow all year, and is a Land-mark twenty miles off at Sea.

John Josselyn’s further writings indicate that he probably
also summited the mountain (as I did one June, when there was still snow on the
slopes). Now a not-particularly arduous but long day’s hike in good weather along groomed
trails, it was not a casual undertaking in the 1660’s. It is a volatile place with fierce, sometimes unpredictable, weather. The Josselyns probably
journeyed along the magnificent Saco River, south of Scarborough, to reach the
range. There John Josselyn made
meteorological observations (The
Mount Washington Observatory on April 12, 1934, recorded the wind at 231 miles
per hour, a record that held through the 20th century).

Josselyn liked to compose catalogs and there is humor
sprinkled about his lists. In the one on fishes, he prefaced: “Pliny and Isadore write there are not above 144 Kinds of Fishes, but to my
knowledge there are nearer 300: I suppose America
was not known to Pliny and Isadore.” The account of his unfortunate
encounter with a wasp nest begins with his belief he was coming across an
exotic fruit. And, amusing for readers today, Josselyn was none too fond of the
Puritans of the Bay Colony. The Native Americans, on the other hand, were regarded with admiration.

Touch-me-not or Hummingbird tree - a favorite of the bird to feed upon. Josselyn, John. New-Englands rarities. (1672). Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47579388.

For botany researchers there is much information to decipher
from New-Englands rarities. Twenty-two
invasive species or weeds are listed under a section “Of such Plants as have
sprung up since the English Planted and kept Cattle in New-England” (the
reference to cows is of their manure).In Josselyn’s identifications, sow thistle, night shade, mallowes,
wormwood, bloodwort, and cheek weed are recorded; some are identifiable today,
others not. According to noted botanist, ecologist and conservationist Paul Sears,
Josselyn provides the first mention of the now-ubiquitous dandelion in America.
From the many references, it is evident that the author had with him the hefty 1633 Thomas Johnson’s
edition of Herballby John Gerard,
“our famous Herbalist.” Josselyn notes the New World plants described by Gerard
as well as Parkinson and points out his own discoveries, such as skunk cabbage
and the pitcher-plant.

Herb True Love: "the leaves are good to be laid upon hot tumors." Josselyn, John. New-Englands rarities. (1672). Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47579357.

Recipes, whether for medical purposes or nourishment, are
sprinkled throughout the text. The wild turkey is fully described for the first
time and what must be one of the earliest records of meat being eaten with
cranberries as "it is a delicate Sauce." Josselyn also mentions “pompions” (pumpkin) pie. The colonists of
course learned about the cultivation of pumpkins, squash and corn from the
native inhabitants. “Billberries” (blueberries), are reported to be “very good
to allay the burning heat of Feavers and hot Agues, either in Syrup or
Conserve. A most excellent Summer Dish." Peas, grown in New England, "are the best in the world."

Josselyn soon expanded New-Englands
rarities with An account of two voyages to New England in 1674 (BHL copy digitized from the Smithsonian Libraries). The dedication in this edition is loftier
and more ambitious: to the President and Fellows of the Royal Society. A
relative of Josseyln’s, Samuel Fortrey, had helped pay for the printing of the
earlier work. There is far more detail on the provisioning and crossings of the
ships and attendant illnesses and deaths. There is also a disturbing story of
the rape of a slave on Noodles Island in Boston Harbor, a horrifying but
important testament in the history of slavery in New England.

Two voyages to New England provides more scenes of the coast. Monhegan Island, a favorite
place of mine, is a speck about ten miles from the nearest mainland. Following
European explorers Martin Pring, Samuel de Champlain, George Weymouth, John
Smith (and before these sailors, possibly the Vikings), Josselyn reported that Monhegan was filled with
fisherman’s houses and shacks, long a staging area for drying fish and post for
fur traders to send their goods across the Atlantic. Cod was the great commodity,
harvested from the abundant fishing grounds of the Gulf of Maine and along the
coast. Since the mid-19th century, Monhegan, spectacularly ruggedly
beautiful, has been better known as an artist colony and draw for tourists, at
least in the summer.

New-Englands rarities was
cited by the great Swedish zoologist and botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1753, attesting to its completeness and authority on flora
and fauna for about a century. It also inspired a certain type of travel
literature. Henry David Thoreau was an admirer and in A week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) wrote of
Josselyn’s speaking of “the strong new soil.” Soon after I encountered the book
in the Cullman Library of Natural History, I came across a reprinted edition while
in Salem, Massachusetts in the gift shop of the House of the Seven Gables. Most
valued today for its accounting of plants, the book and its successor, An account of two voyages, have much to
offer historians of indigenous cultures about the impact of European
settlements, cookery, gardens, religion, folklore, meteorology, geology, and maritime and
social norms of the early colonial period in America. Its sense of wonder about
the landscape of the New World provides the modern reader with a sense of the
place.

Josselyn’s last printed words:

Now by the merciful providence of the
Almighty, having performed Two voyages to the North-east parts of the
Western-world, I am safely arrived in my Native Countrey; having in part made
good the French proverb, Traveul
where thou canst, but dye where thou oughtest, that is, in thine own Countrey.

The printer Giles Widdows' woodcut mark, with his initials and winged dragon. Josselyn, John. New-Englands rarities. (1672). Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47579382.

'The American Sunflower" Josselyn wrote: "The plants in New-England for the variety, number, beauty, and vertues, many stand in Competition with the plants of any Countrey in Europe." Josselyn, John. New-Englands rarities. (1672). Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47579359.

Black Point, Scarborough. Charcoal and chalk drawing of approximately 1884, by Winslow Homer. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Collection. Josselyn reported of a spring at Black Point that was "purgative and cures scabs and Itch." Along with the springs, the Englishman was taken with the curative properties of the waters in the New World.

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